Seer of Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier

Before I review this, I just want to clarify that the Sevenwaters series is one of my favorites, and Juliet Marillier is one of my favorite authors. I've had this on my wishlist since I heard there was another Sevenwaters book coming out.

The young seer Sibeal is visiting an island of elite warriors, prior to making her final pledge as a druid. It's there she finds Felix, a survivor of a Viking shipwreck, who's lost his memory. The scholarly Felix and Sibeal form a natural bond. He could even be her soul mate, but Sibeal's vocation is her true calling, and her heart must answer.

As Felix fully regains his memory, Sibeal has a runic divination showing her that Felix must go on a perilous mission-and that she will join him. The rough waters and the sea creatures they will face are no match for Sibeal's own inner turmoil. She must choose between the two things that tug at her soul-her spirituality and a chance at love...

As I said, I'm a huge fan of Juliet Marillier, but I felt like this book was fairly different from the previous Sevenwaters books. It was a lighter read, for one thing. Where the other books seemed to have an element of peril and danger, and no shortage of dark themes, Seer of Sevenwaters seemed to meander in safety for most of the novel. There is a lot of conversation. I know this sounds bad, but I got bogged down in all the philosophical discussion.

I did find myself becoming very nostalgic at the beginning and end of the book. It was like a Sevenwaters novel at those points: there was danger, romance, and the family from Sevenwaters that fans of Marillier will find familiar. I will say that it was nice seeing what happened to many characters from the other books, and visiting the island of Inis Eala.

However, I found the new main characters Sibeal and Felix to be bland and rather uninteresting, and the plot was formulaic. Boy meets girl, they fall in love but don't say anything, supernatural drama ensues, insert dramatic confession of love here. I had the entire course of the story figured out after meeting the shipwrecked characters, even the grand mystery of Svala and Knut (a couple from the Viking shipwreck), while the rest of the island was blissfully ignorant. I found that somewhat implausible as well, that an entire island of warriors and people with plenty of intuition couldn't figure out who the bad guy was and what was going on with these new people.

All in all, this was a book that could have been chopped in half...there was a lot of filler in between a relatively solid first and last few chapters. Marillier is an amazing author, so I admit this book came as quite a surprise to me. It made me long for Marillier's first few books, so maybe I'll reread those.

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 2.5 / 5

Buy or Try? Try
More? Standalone, but of a series of 5 books so far

Content

Plot: 2 / 5

Setting: 4 / 5 (still love the setting, even through 5 books)

Characters: 2 / 5

Style 
Pace: Slow
Descriptiveness: Middlin'
Fantasy factor: Magical Realism

Amazon.com link

Random Business

First, I have a question for my bookish friends: How long do you give a book to impress you before you throw in the towel? How bad does it have to be for you to give it up? What if you intend to read it some other time?

Also, I have discovered interlibrary loans. Yay! I have requested The Broken Kingdoms and Cold Magic...they should be in by the end of this week. :)

It is exam week but...meh. Priorities. :P

The Child Thief by Brom

This may be stereotypical of me, but I love fairy tales, and I especially love new twists on fairy tales. This particular novel is a much darker version of Peter Pan than the one you see in Disney movies, although the original tale hints at some darkness as well.

Peter is quick, daring, and full of mischief—and like all boys, he loves to play, though his games often end in blood. His eyes are sparkling gold, and when he graces you with his smile you are his friend for life, but his promised land is not Neverland.

Fourteen-year-old Nick would have been murdered by the drug dealers preying on his family had Peter not saved him. Now the irresistibly charismatic wild boy wants Nick to follow him to a secret place of great adventure, where magic is alive and you never grow old. Even though he is wary of Peter's crazy talk of faeries and monsters, Nick agrees. After all, New York City is no longer safe for him, and what more could he possibly lose? 

There is always more to lose. 

Accompanying Peter to a gray and ravished island that was once a lush, enchanted paradise, Nick finds himself unwittingly recruited for a war that has raged for centuries—one where he must learn to fight or die among the "Devils," Peter's savage tribe of lost and stolen children. 

There, Peter's dark past is revealed: left to wolves as an infant, despised and hunted, Peter moves restlessly between the worlds of faerie and man. The Child Thief is a leader of bloodthirsty children, a brave friend, and a creature driven to do whatever he must to stop the "Flesh-eaters" and save the last, wild magic in this dying land.

I don't think I've ever read a book written by an illustrator before, and The Child Thief has several of Brom's illustrations throughout the book, including the cover art. They're beautiful, and really help the reader picture the characters.

That said, the prose does not suffer at all. When I first heard that Brom was an artist first, I was somewhat skeptical about his writing ability. Oh how wrong I was. This book was a page-turner without having a simplistic writing style, and moved along without skimping on description. Without the illustrations, I still had a good idea what characters and places looked like and I was never bored.

The characters and the plot were where Brom shone, I think. The plot twisted and turned until I wasn't sure who to cheer for. By the end, it's unclear who is the "good guy" and who is the "bad guy." Everyone (for the most part) thinks they're doing the right thing...but who really is? I love authors that are unafraid to deal with the sometimes ambiguous nature of morality. 

The world Brom opens up to the reader is dark, there's no question about that. From the beginning, the dregs of society are the center of our outside world. Peter brings children into Avalon from horrible situations, but that's not even the worst, most graphic part of the book. People are flayed alive, intestines are eaten out of live people, there are horrible descriptions of rape, torture, and one character is crucified. This book is not for the faint of heart, and this is not an uplifting book for the most part. Be prepared for main characters to be killed.

The book ends on a relatively good note though, though it may not be a happily ever after ending. I didn't walk away feeling depressed though...that's a pet peeve of mine with novels.

While the book was dark and gruesome, to the point where I thought about throwing in the towel a few times, it is definitely worth the read. I am so glad I kept reading. Brom's exploration of a tale that was already sort of creepy was amazing. I enjoyed the fact that I had to think about the subjective nature of right and wrong.

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 4 / 5

Buy or Try? Try, merely because of the violence
More? Standalone

Content

Plot: 5 / 5

Setting: 4 / 5

Characters: 4 / 5

Style 
Pace: Fast 
Descriptiveness: Middlin'
Fantasy factor: Magical Realism to Low Fantasy

Amazon.com link

Book Blog Hop

Happy Thanksgiving all! I stuffed my face and enjoyed hanging out with my family. Life is good.

Question this week:"What is your favorite book cover?"
Answer: For this one, I had to go through my librarything and goodreads to pick one out. I don't pick a book unless I like the cover ysee :P

Upon further review, I think I have to go with, much to my chagrin, Elfland.

I made it extra big so yall could see why I thought it was so beautiful. Unfortunately, I found the book to be lacking.Still, can't beat Kinuko Craft.

Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

I feel like I'm supremely late on the uptake with this series. Originally, I was going to read this book for a challenge, but I didn't finish it in time. I had bought it forever ago from a used book store and I was happy to finally read one of the books I already own. 

Ever since her parents were killed in a car accident when she was five, Elena Michaels has longed for a normal family life. Smart, beautiful, and engaged to be married, Elena hopes to fulfill that dream when disaster strikes. Not only has her fiancé lied about his secret life as a werewolf, but he's made her one, too. She has no choice but to join him at Stonehaven, the upstate New York home of an elite pack of werewolves.

In an attempt to break away, she moves to Toronto to lead a normal life. Working as a journalist, Elena now lives with her new architect boyfriend, works out in the basement gym of their high-rise apartment, lunches with girlfriends from the office, and once a week, at four in the morning runs naked and furred through a downtown Toronto ravine, ripping out the throats of her animal prey. But when a band of outlaw werewolves threatens the Stonehaven pack, Elena's feral instincts drive her back there to join the defense. What follows is a war for territory, for pride, and ultimately for Elena herself.

I'm afraid this review will be awfully short. Despite sleeping until 10am this morning, I am still exhausted from the last few weeks...and I've taken Benedryl which knocks me for a bloody loop.

In any case, this book wasn't bad. I haven't read many vampire or werewolf books, so I can't say that I know how it rates next to other books of the same variety. I'll be honest, there was a little too much description of wolf fighting and playing for my tastes. It just got sort of dull after awhile. I understand the author was probably trying to build a relationship between the characters, but the fact remains that wolves don't have the depth of expression that humans have and it got rather routine.

I liked Elena all right. The first half of the book I wasn't crazy about any of the characters. They just seemed too smug and cookie cutter. At the end, when worlds collide, as it were, I found myself finding Clay far more endearing. It was like a switch turned on and all of a sudden he was trying to be likable or something. Still, the characters lacked soul for the most part. I felt like half the book was spent explaining stuff.

Also, the explaining got old after awhile. I felt like there was lost of background information, but not much reason for it. Pointless stories. I guess it was to flesh out the characters, but I would have preferred current actions to speak for themselves.

Overall, the book was sort of choppy and generic. I liked it, and there was lots of promise in this book... but I'm not in a hurry to read the next.

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 3 / 5

Buy or Try? Try
More? 1 / 12 in the Women of the Otherworld series...different characters

Content

Plot: 2 / 5

Setting: 3 / 5

Characters: 3 / 5

Style 
Pace: Middlin' to Fast 
Descriptiveness: Prose
Fantasy factor: Magical Realism

Amazon.com link